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Woody Hayes shoves L.A. Times’ Art Rogers

Jan. 1, 1973: Ohio State head coach Woody Hayes leaves a pregame huddle before the Rose Bowl game between USC and Ohio State. Right after this photo was taken, Hayes shoved Times photographer Art Rogers’ camera into his face.

Times photographer Art Rogers filed a complaint with police today charging Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes with assaulting him at the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day.

Two Pasadena detectives went to the Huntington Sheraton Hotel talked to Hayes today and got his version of the incident.

Rogers, 55, alleged that Hayes rammed his camera back into his face as he was photographing the Buckeye coach huddling with team members five minutes before the start of the Rose Bowl game with USC.

“It’s a good thing I had that thing (camera) tight against my face,” Rogers said today at Pasadena Police headquarters after swearing out the complaint.

“If it had been out here (holding the camera away from his face) it could really have done a lot of damage.”…

David M. King, a staff photographer for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, accompanied Rogers to the police station today as a witness.

King said he had photographed Hayes moments before the incident with Rogers and that “Woody wasn’t too happy about it.”

“I said to Art, ‘Watch it, Woody’s on the warpath,’ ” King said. “He (Rogers) got on his knee and he took a picture of Woody through two of the assistants. Woody said, ‘Get the hell out of here.’ “

King said Hayes then reached out, grabbed Rogers’ camera and shoved it into his face…

The Times was unable to reach Hayes at his Pasadena hotel today for a comment. The Associated Press reported that Hayes was finishing breakfast at the hotel when he was told of Rogers’ action.

“I never pushed him or hit him,” Hayes said, according to the Associated Press. “I have five or six coaches who were with me at the time who can give an account of everything that happened.”

Hayes was quoted by the Associated Press as saying, “This photographer kept pushing in and trying to get a picture of me at close range…I turned my back on him and he went around on the other side and stuck the camera in my face again.

“This time I pushed the camera away and made some remark, but I did not hit him. I just made a shoving motion to get the camera out of my face.”

A brief article in the April 7, 1973, reported that the misdemeanor battery charge against Hayes was dropped by Rogers because he “had received an ‘appropriate communication’ from Hayes.”

In the Los Angeles Times archives are several photos of Woody Hayes taken by Art Rogers both before this 1973 incident and after. The above two photos were published in different editions of the Jan. 2, 1973, Los Angeles Times.

In December 1978 Hayes was fired by Ohio State after punching a Clemson player at the Gator Bowl. Hayes died in 1987.